Essence

No, I haven’t died – I’ve just been super busy! I’ve been offered a place at university for September which is going to mean a lot of changes in my life so my head has been all over the place. Still, studying up to date special effects make-up, proper prosthetics, wig making and a few other creative and useful things for four years is a very exciting prospect. I need to have an assessment of my disability for them to work out my support needs and options to be able to complete the course.

Anyway enough of me prattling on, lets get on with the nails! Yes that’s right, nails. Since I’m no longer at college under City & Guilds rules I can paint my nails with abandon. I’ve grown them back a bit, not too much as I still need to be able to paint, draw and of course do make-up but there’s plenty to paint now especially since I’m luckily blessed with long nail beds (which are now completely back to normal for my long term readers) even if I do have a horrific C curve.

I don’t think I did a bad job of free-handing the French tips considering it’s the first time I’ve done my own in over a year. I always paint them lower than the free edge actually goes to give the illusion of more length.

Just recently I’ve been using a peel off base coat which is a fairly new discovery. I’m quite taken with it as it means I can take off the polish without using remover and you get to be allowed to pick it!

Polishes used:

UNT Cosmetics; ‘Ready For Take Off’ (peel off base coat)

Butter London; ‘Nail Foundation (regular base coat)

Nails Inc; nail kale in ‘Westbourne Park Road’

Essence; gel nail polish in ’44 On Air!’

Revlon; ‘Sequins’ (pretty sure this was limited edition but it just gold glitter of various sizes in a base of clear polish.)

Seche Vite (top coat)

I hope you are all keeping well, I do have a couple of posts planned including details of my visit to the first Manchester Make-Up and Body Art Expo and a couple of product reviews.

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I thought I would do a post about nude lipsticks and take the opportunity to show you a few from my collection that were to hand. There are some here that are favourites and some I’m less than keen on.

I am fairly lucky in that I naturally have quite a neutral skin tone and while I am pale I’m not china doll pale. This gives me quite a bit of scope when it comes to choosing a nude shade.
Many women struggle with choosing a nude lipstick that suits them. I find it helps a lot to look at several all together at once to help you see the base tone of the lipstick. Some are a brown base, some pink and a few more neutral, some are warm and some are cool toned. Looked at individually this can be very hard to spot but grouped together (either in the tube or as swatches) the contrast will reveal the base tone and shade.
The general rule when choosing a lipstick is to to choose one with a similar undertone to your skin, so if your skin has a cool/blueish tone choose a cool toned lipstick and vice versa. Sheer nudes are always easier to wear than bolder formulas such as mattes. I would avoid anything your skin shade or paler – this will wash you out and is not at all easy to carry off unless you have darker skin at which point it is is great if you want to do a 60s inspired look. There were no nude lipsticks around back then and many women used foundation on the lips. Our lips are naturally pinker as the skin there is thinner so it can look very unnatural if they are made too pale for your face.
You can balance out a paler nude lip with a dark smokey eye for a classic look or wear a very natural looking one as part of a no make-up look.

And the same ones again slightly closer up. Clinique’s ‘Nude Pop’ and Charlotte Tilbury’s ‘Bitch Perfect’ are current favourites and I love the Essence offering which is a bargain at less than £3! It’s one of the newer additions to my kit along with the Mac one.

The Revlon one is on the incredibly pale end of the scale and is very hard to wear despite being sheer, this one doesn’t come out very often! Michael Kors ‘Diva’ is very much a your lips but better kind of shade. Illamasqua’s lipstick has one of the most longwearing formulations on the market so there’s always going to be one of those in any favourites list of mine!

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I’ll start with the GlossyBox; for December they have a collaboration with blogger Really Ree called ‘The Rose Gold Edit’ which is reflected in the design of the box itself.
Now one of the things I usually like about GlossyBox is that they don’t waste half the budget re-designing the box each month and just have a standard pink box so I’m not really sure how I feel about the unusual box design. On the one hand it’s nice to have a different box for a special month – and it is a lovely foiled design. On the other hand… it’s just another cardboard box. Subscribers end up with absolutely loads of them which they may or may not be able to re-use.

Unfortunately the weather has been bad here so my photos are a little dim today but I did my best to show you my unboxing.

As you can see GlossyBox continued the foil design inside the box, a nice touch! The ribbon, paper and sticker were also cleverly matched to the colour scheme making it very nice to receive.

And ta da! Here are the products I received: Starskin Bio-Cellulose Second Skin Mask in ‘Brightening’, full size Essence Liquid Lipstick in ‘Show Off’ (which photographs as red on my camera and shows as red on the GlossyBox leaflet but is actually a vivid pink), Philosophy ‘Purity Made Simple’ 3-in-1 Cleanser, full size Cheeky Chat Me Up Nail Paint in ‘Crush on You’, full size So Susan ‘Statement Skin’ highlighter pencil, and Être Belle ‘Golden Skin Caviar’ eye roll on.
Pretty Good! I would have preferred a brighter nail colour but this one might be fun to try as part of a French manicure – we’ll see as I try them all out!

On to the BirchBox – or bag as it is this month! I wondered what the unusual package was when it arrived, having totally forgotten about this month’s change to an evening bag.

When I first heard they were doing the bags this month I have to be honest I was a bit uncertain about the top flap being green, but I need not have worried! The photo they posted where it looks quite garish must have had an awful lot of flash or maybe even some tinkering with the colour balance. While it’s definitely a green, it’s quite a dark one. The right hand corner is gold which is showing up in a lot of pictures (not just my own!) as silver for some reason.
So, lets go ahead and open it!

In the bag was: Benefit’s ‘Ultimate Party Kit’ containing sample sizes of ‘Puff Off!’ and ‘They’re Real Push Up Liner’, Model Co. long lasting lipstick in ‘Kitty’, Ciaté mini in ‘Couture Noir’, Elemis ‘Pro Collagen Marine Cream’ (always good to have more of this favourite), Skin & Co. ‘Sicilian Body Gel’ and a bonus sample of Roloxin ‘Lift’.

Overall on first look I’m happier with the GlossyBox this month although I do love the bag idea. I’ll be passing on the Benefit samples almost straight away as They’re Real Liner was such a huge fail for me, I have the full size product already and barely bother with it!

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I'm Kath; a qualified beauty therapist and make-up artist. I'm currently studying media make-up and special effects to add some more strings to my bow. I'm a "make-up geek" as my friends say and am also a bit obsessed with nail polish too! I use this site to share my love of make-up and beauty and skin care education.
I'm also a bendy-EDSer and a wheelchair user.
Portfolio website coming soon!
bendybeauty.com